Honesty is about telling the truth.

It is important that you are honest with yourself as well as others. Sometimes this involves self-reflection and recognition. If you are struggling with your workload or you don’t understand how to complete a particular assignment, be honest about this and seek assistance from the relevant people. This might mean making a plan with your lecturer or a professional staff member, or coming to the Skills Centre.

When it comes to your academic work, honesty also means being clear about what you have done yourself and what you have incorporated from others, whether this is quoting another work or adapting it. You do this by giving credit to work (i.e. writing, speeches, film, music, art) that you use from others.

Being honest builds trust. Being trustworthy means being reliable. When you put your trust in someone, or something, you rely on that person, or thing, meeting a certain set of recognised standards and being genuine. An environment of trust is key to successful collaboration that helps the development of knowledge.

You should also consider the trustworthiness of materials that you use in your work or the places that you go to for assistance. Use critical thinking when you consider these and do some digging to make sure that they are honest, reputable, and legitimate. Sometimes when you seek help for your assignments online you will be targeted by services that do not operate honestly and cannot be trusted. They may offer to do your work for you, but not only can you not trust the quality of the work, these services also operate illegally and therefore sometimes take advantage of students by blackmailing them, asking for continued payments.

The skill of critical thinking also ties in with UCC's Graduate Attributes Programme in that it helps you develop into a creator, evaluator, and communicator of knowledge, and enables you to become an independent and creative thinker.

Fairness is established through consistent, equitable, and impartial treatment of others, and transparent guidelines and policies. Students demonstrate fairness by completing their own work and following University policies, and the University demonstrates fairness by ensuring that these policies are clear and are applied consistently and with impartiality.

Respect entails recognition and value, both of your own work and perspective, and those of others. Placing value on your own work means putting effort into it and persevering through obstacles that may arise because you recognise that your contribution is meaningful.

Respecting others means listening to different perspectives, engaging in open communication and civil debates, and acknowledging the contributions of others in our own work. It also means recognising what we might learn from others, and what we might teach them, which incorporates the concept of meaningful feedback.

Understanding how to give constructive feedback to others, and how to receive it ourselves is important. This involves considering the impact of our words and actions, and framing these in a way that is useful, not hurtful. When receiving feedback, we treat it respectfully by being open to it and reflecting on it.

Acting in a responsible manner means that you take accountability for your actions. The responsibility for your education is shared between yourself and the University. Therefore, it is important that you meaningfully engage in your own learning. This includes making sure you know University policies and programme expectations, not being afraid to ask questions if you don’t understand something, or if you need help, and following through with any tasks you need to complete.

Sometimes having academic integrity won’t be the easy or popular choice. It takes courage to stand firm in your values and persevere when something becomes difficult. At times being courageous might mean getting a lower mark on something, but doing the work yourself means that you can learn from that and improve, making whatever mark you get from completing your own work more valuable than one you might get by passing someone else’s work off as your own.

Equally, being courageous means speaking up if you notice something that breaches academic integrity, including if you are approached by an individual or company offering to do your work for you. This helps to maintain the fairness, integrity, and value of your degree.

Have a look at Quality and Qualification Ireland’s (QQI) #MyOwnWork campaign and help stop contract cheating services by reporting them at the bottom of the page.